Unclear and Present Danger - Star Trek: First Contact

Episode Date: June 30, 2024

For this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Star Trek: First Contact, the eighth movie in the Star Trek film series and the first film in that series to focus solely on the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation.First Contact stars Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Levar Burton, Gates McFadden, Brent Spiner Marina Sartis, Michael Dorm, Alfrie Woodard, Alice Krige and James Cromwell. It was directed by Frakes with a score by Jerry Goldsmith.In First Contact, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of Enterprise races through time to Earth’s past to confront the Borg, a cybernetic hivemind that has gone back to humanity’s moment of first contact with an alien species in order to destroy the Federation and change the future. Picard and his team must fight two battles. On Earth, they must ensure First Contact. On the Enterprise, they must defeat the Borg, who have taken root on the ship.The tagline for Star Trek: First Contact is “Resistance is futile.”You can find Star Trek: First Contact to rent or buy on demand on Apple TV or Amazon Prime.Episodes come out roughly every two weeks, and we’ll see you then with an episode on Independence Day, the 1996 blockbuster directed by Roland Emmerich and starring Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman and many others.And don’t forget our Patreon, where we watch the films of the Cold War and try to unpack them as political and historical documents! For $5 a month, you get two bonus episodes every month as well as access to the entire back catalog — we’re almost two years deep at this point. Sign up at patreon.com/unclearpod.The latest episode of our Patreon podcast is on Rambo: First Blood Part II, the second film in the Rambo franchise starring Sylvester Stallone.Connor Lynch produced this episode. Artwork by Rachel Eck.Contact us!

In his nightmares, he can see them. In his mind, he can hear them. Look he did it. In his soul, he can feel them. I've just received report from deep space five. Long-range sensors that picked... Yes, I know. The warg.

Set a course for Earth. The course for Earth. Maximum war. Now, in Earth's darkest hour, he must fight them again. Captain, Earth, life signs. Population, approximately 9 billion. Alt Borg. How? Time travel.

They went back in a simulated Earth, changed history. I must follow them back. Repair whatever damage they've done. But this time, they must travel to the past. April 4th, 2016. 20063. To save our future. You're all astronauts on some kind of start trick. We invade our space, and we fall back.

They assimilate entire worlds, and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here. It looks like the control deck's 26 up to 11. Mr. Dater and I are returning to the ship. Don't let them touch you. Captain! Data! We must activate the auto-destruct sequence.

You want to destroy the ship and run away. You coward. If you were any other man, I would kill you where you stand. Let's rock and roll! Destroy them. Watch your future's end. We've lost shields and our weapons are gone. Resistance is futile.

Perhaps today is a good thing. Today is a good day to die. John Luke, blow up the damn ship! No! We are not going to lose the Enterprise. Not to the Borg, not while I'm in command. Star Trek, first contact. Welcome to Unclear and Present Danger, a podcast about the political and military thrillers of the 1990s and what they say about the politics of that decade.

I'm Jamel Bowie. I'm a columnist for the New York Times opinion section. I'm John Gans. I write the substack newsletter on Popular Front, and I'm the author of the recently released, when the clock was. broke, conmen, conspiracists, and how America cracked up in the early 1990s, which I'm very pleased to announce is a New York Times bestseller. It is just barely one, but it's still real. And they can't take it away from me. When we last left you listeners, or if you were a new listener, I guess last time our last episode, the book wasn't yet out. Now it's out. As far as I can tell, the reception has been very positive. John and I, were at the American Political History Conference in Nashville, Tennessee recently,

talking about the book, very positive reception at the conference from historians. So, yeah, it's a huge success. I've said it to you many times, John, congratulations. Thank you so much. And if you have not picked up a copy, listeners, you should pick up a copy. It really is a great read. And we actually have an event that's both connected to the podcast and the book coming up but not too long, right?

That's right. On July 12th, we should actually probably just talk about that now since July 12th is soon. Yeah. So on July 12th in New York City at the Metrograph, we will be hosting a screening falling down, a movie we've done on this podcast before, but is a rich text for exactly the period of the 1990s that John's book is about and itself. has a lot to say, I think, about that era. So we're going to watch the movie.

We're going to have a discussion about the movie, about the movie, about the book, about, you know, topics remain. I will look for more information about how you can get tickets and I'll put it in the show notes. We'll talk about it next week as well in the Patreon episode. And then we'll talk about it the week of as well. and I will I will send put reminders on social media I guess but you'll be able to see us live it's not going to be recorded so it'll be sort of like it happens and then it you know it's that's it's it should be a good time uh yeah it'll be it'll be very exciting and um it's it's it's it's very much a synthesis of the book the podcast so if you're a fan of either I think you'll enjoy it yes if you want

to hear me do my apology for that movie, which people, controversial movie, I think it's great. Yeah. And it'll be a good time. And I'm liable to say anything during a live show. I'll be totally honest with you. Plenty of them. I'm usually drinking something.

I, you know, it'll be a lot of fun. I might drink something too. We'll see what happens. All right. For this week's episode of the podcast, we watched Star Trek First Contact, the eighth movie in the Star Trek film series and the first film in the series to focus solely on the cast of Star Trek Next Generation, the previous movie Star Trek Generations, has the T&G cast as well. First Contact stars Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Lovar Burton, Gates McFadden, Brent Spiner,

Marina Sartis, Michael Dorn, Alfry Woodard, Alice Kriege, and James Cromwell, great cast. It was directed by Jonathan Frakes. Frakes, you will know, is Commander Riker. and it has a score by Jerry Goldsmith. In Star Trek First Contact, the Enterprise is on routine patrol when it gets word that there is a Borg attack on the Earth sector. Picard, the Enterprise violate their orders to stay away, Picard having been assimilated into the Borg, not long before the events of the film, and come, you know, helps help help help, rescue the federation effort against the Borg, which is losing. They destroy the Borg vessel,

but the Borg vessel launches a smaller vessel that creates a time vortex sucking in the enterprise and sending it back all the way to the 21st century. As it turns out, the Borg want to prevent first contact between humanity and the Vulcans, thus preventing the federation from coming into being and also assimilating Earth in the process. And so, the crew of the enterprise decide they are going to stop this plot. On one hand, you have members of the enterprise who are on Earth assisting Zephrm Cochran, the man who will fly the first warp capable vessel, whose vessel was damaged in a Borg attack, and they're going to help rebuild the vessel and have the scheduled warp demonstrations so they can get the attention of the Vulcans

and make sure first contact happens. Meanwhile, on the enterprise itself, it has been taken over by the Borg. And so a team led by Picard are fighting back against the Borg on the enterprise. In the film, Picard is struggling with his experiences having similar with the Borg and in dealing with how that affects his judgment in this fight against the Borg on the enterprise. And meanwhile, the crew of the enterprise that are on Earth are themselves dealing with the feelings and emotions and such they have. intervening in history and being in the pivotal point in galactic history for them. Everything comes to a head as the flight attempts to go off, and the Borg come close to fully assimilating

the enterprise as Picard and his loyal deputy lieutenant. Data also are facing off against a Borg queen, a sort of manifestation of the Borg hive mine, that is taken root on the enterprise. Star Trek First Contact can be found to rent or buy on iTunes and Amazon. I believe it's available for streaming on Paramount Plus. You know, I totally forgot to look up the taglines. Let's do that. Resistance is futile, right?

Right? Did I get it? I don't know what else it would be, but we'll look. Prepare for assimilation. resistance is futile all right the battle to save the future has begun okay those are all quite good there's some other ones here but they're bad i'm just going to read the good ones um those are great taglines uh start truck first contact i should say at the top here was a huge hit budget of 45 million box office of 146 million dollars it was it was a legit uh hit for uh paramount um for the star trek

franchise. Star Trek First Contact was released on November 22nd, 1996. So let's check out the New York Times for that day. All right. Here's an interesting piece. From suspect and murders to new life in America. In the last days of spring in 1985, Pedro Antonio Andrade was a leftist guerrilla commander so committed to over curling the United States back government of El Salvador officials say that he helped plan the most violent attack on Americans of El Salvador Civil War, the shooting of four off-duty Marines and nine other people as they died at sidewalk restaurants in the Zona Rosa section of San Salvador. Five years later, Mr. Andrade and his family were living quietly in the United States.

Their visas approved by diplomats and their life finance with thousands of dollars from the Central Intelligence Agency for his service as an informer against the cause that he once championed. The facts of Mr. Andrade's mission were confirmed by United States officials this month after nearly a year's investigation by officials of the state, justice, and defense departments and the CIA. That long inquiry broke into public view after the family of the Marines killed the attack, pressed the United States Senator to join its battle to have Mr. Andrade, who has been arrested on charges of overstating his visa held to account. Andrade, an illegal alien and murder of American Marines must not be allowed to exploit our bureaucracy. Senator Richard C. Shelby, haven't heard that name in a long time. An Alabama Republican wrote in a letter to President Clinton that was made public yesterday.

Mr. Andrade has consistently denied any direct involvement in the killings and has said he initially agreed to act as an informer only under duress. He also took two lie detector tests, which are described by several American officials, as inconclusive. some of those officials, including those who came to know Mr. Andrade well, said they believe that the evidence of Mr. Andrade's role in the Zona Rosa case was far from certain. Well, this is interesting. This was the FMLN was supported by the Soviet Union and Cuba, fighting against the Salvadoran government, junta, which was backed by the United States,

was sort of a reverse situation where you had a right-wing regime. and left-wing guerrillas rather than left-wing regime and right-wing gorillas. It's unsurprising that the CIA would try to shout their criminal. And, yeah, I wonder whatever happened with this case. I do not know. This is funny. I just watched Oliver Stone Salvador, which is about a journalist who is kind of in the middle of the Salvador and Civil War

and the ladies. It's a great movie. James Woods stars and James Woods' notorious creep plays the creep quite well of the film. But the striking thing about the film at the very least is how I mean it's a very angry

like righteously angry film about U.S. involvement and support for kind of the right in Salvador. And the movie makes quite plain just the sheer level of like psychotic violence that was committed during that that conflict. Sort of a lost conflict among Americans, obviously not among Salvadorans.

And it's an election year. And we have plenty of talk about the border as usual. And it's always important to remember that the conditions in Central and South America a lot to American intervention, you could say. It sounds really interesting. I'd like to watch that. It's worthwhile. It might be worth doing.

I'd watch it against. I think it might be worth doing for the Patreon. I've been on this like 80s Oliver Stone kick. And it's actually quite interesting to watch those movies kind of in quick succession. Yeah. Russian military loses satellites. Loss of Sputnik finds itself without spies in the sky. In a vivid demonstration of the problems of plicting this country's once proud space program,

Russia has been without photo-reconnaissance satellites for nearly two months, Russia and Western scientists say. It is for the first time since the early 1960s that the Russian military has been without the satellite pictures, modern armies deem essential for detecting threats and conducting combat for more than a brief period. Russia's last operable photo satellite burned up on re-entry to the atmosphere on September 28th, and since then, Russian Westbrod-ex would say the Russian military has lacked up-to-date imagery of such potential flashpoints as Afghanistan in the Russia-China border. This is a consequence of continued under-financing of the space program,

particularly in the military sector, said Maxim Tarasenko, a space analyst at Moscow's Institute for Physics and Technology. Russia's military intelligence service are not completely without surveillance, said other types of satellites that could detect ballistic missile attacks and track electronic missions from military warships are still working. Well, I mean, this really shows you, the decline of the of the Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. The 1990s are remembered in Russia as a very humiliating time of loss of national prestige, of economic problems, of, you know, of decay.

And yeah, it's difficult to think that the country that was once, you know, the first country to put an object in space, a named object in space, loses its satellites. And this syndrome of the 90s has a lot to do with the way Russia is behaving now, which is to try to regain some of its lost honor. So that's just a little piece of history about that. Let's see. What else we got here? A lot of U.S. to ease rules to make airbags less dangerous. Yeah, okay.

29 arrested in tax fraud scheme described as New York's largest. and what was described as the largest tax fraud scheme in the history of New York City government. Fair prosecutors announced the arrest of 29 people yesterday. Three of the 29 were past or present city employees, including a former head tax collector in Brooklyn. Well, it will come as no surprise as anybody that New York government is very corrupt. And there's lots of scams and schemes like this going on. Anything else that looks interesting to you here? not really

yeah this is the real the heart of the 90s here I feel like the only thing worth I don't know noting is that Clinton got reelected a couple weeks before this front page I mean walk it's cake walk cake walk a cake walk

one of the lowest turnout presidential elections in American history kind of peak politics doesn't matter America And it makes sense because the, I mean, the parties were like, that was sort of the idea. Like, the parties were not that different. Right.

I summarize in the famous race against the machine lyric. Morphagor, the son of a drug lord, none of the above. Fuck it cut the cord. Yeah. Light saw guerrilla radio, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. All right. Star Trek First Contact.

John, have you seen this movie before, right? I think I saw this in theaters with my dad. Yeah. I definitely saw this movie in theaters to my dad. Yeah. And I got to tell you, I really liked it when I was a kid. Because it was just like my kind of thing. And I kind of did not like it this time around.

I thought it was bad. And I thought I was so shocked because I love Star Trek. What is it? The Undiscovered Country. Right. Yeah. I thought that I think that movie still rocks. And I was very taken aback by how corny this movie was and how, like,

it jumped into just as a piece of filmmaking like it just jumps into it like you're watching a star trek episode i was like this is not this doesn't feel like a movie i'm like what are they talking about you know like i think if i didn't have any star trick background i would not i guess these movies are kind of made for the fans i would not know what the hell they were talking about within the first 10 minutes of the movie and they're like oh the borg is coming and we all know that Picard is upset about the borg well you only know that if you'd like known that he had been, I mean, I guess they explained it gradually, but still, it felt very much for Star Trek people. That was my one observation. And my second observation was just like,

first of all, it felt cobbed together from other Star Trek. Like you had this, you had this Captain Ahab thing. You know, it's Picard is like obsessed with fighting the board and even quotes Moby Dick. But they already did that. They already quoted Moby Dick in in Rath of Khan, which is a far. superior film you know and then the other thing that they already did was go back in time they went back in time and what is it Star Trek 1 or 2? Star Trek 4 um yeah the voyage home the voyage home with the whales right same movie yes that's that's right they're in San Francisco yeah yeah yeah so I think that the so I just felt like this was cobbled I mean like it just felt like all right they've retread all this stuff

And the villain of the Borg, I mean, they, they, the problem with the villain of the Borg is like, it's inherently boring because it's like, oh, they assimilate other cultures to their faceless regime. So then they had to create this character of the queen to give it any kind of personality. And still the motivation doesn't make sense. And then they kidnap data and she has like a sexual thing with data. And I was just like, what the fuck are they doing? like why are they doing this and like this is and that was like that felt like also weird fan service and I was like oh like it just I I and then the character of Zephran Cochran played by a terrific actor what's his name James Cromwell James Cromwell yeah I don't think

he was that well cast for that role and and even though he's great he plays this kind of like aging boomer like alcoholic like Jimmy Buffett like stuck in Margarine Ritaville and he's like an accidental success almost like he's in it for the money I mean we can talk about like the ideological end of history stuff that's implicit in that but I just thought what I just watched the movie and I thought this is whack and like when they put on like the rock and roll music and like I was just so tired of all the corny callouts it was making and I was just thought it was the most fan servicey, Trekkie movie of the Star Trek movies

I can remember seeing the least one that would be nice for a general audience to watch and it's like borrowings had become so self-reflexive that I was like, dude, I've seen this movie already. Anyway, I'm sorry, we're having a little bit of a Cisco and Iber moment here. I'm about to be like two thumbs up.

Yeah, I know, I know, but I really want to hear what you have to say about it. I mean, okay, I frankly have a ton of nostalgia for this movie. I saw in theaters when I was a kid. The T&G was very much part of the Bowie family, like weekly watching for a bunch of reasons. I mean, first my parents are like, or my dad in particular is exactly of the age to have grown up with Star Trek is like a thing in their pop cultural universes. They, I think the fact that Star Trek is like the Federation's basically sort of space Navy. was very appealing to my parents who were both in the Navy.

And so it was sort of like, you know, they enjoyed watching that take on it. And having grown up watching TNG, it's just, it's very much like a feeling of like familiarity. Like I like these characters. I like these actors. I like seeing them on screen.

They feel like old friends to me. As for as for the movie itself. So I will, I will say that all of the TNG movies, and I think this is the best of the bunch, but all of them have this one, I think, critical flaw, which is that like the problem they all have that the TOS ones don't have is that they feel like extended episodes of the show. Yes. This gets worse with the subsequent ones, but even First Contact has a bit of this. I think, I think when you sort of like a clue in, because the movie begins, the film begins. Carter's having a nightmare about being assimilated, and then he wakes up from a nightmare,

but it was sort of like a nested nightmare as a secondary nightmare where a boreg implant comes through his skin. And that is, which I think is a great way to open the movie for people who are familiar with the characters and with everything. But if you aren't familiar with it, it's sort of like, I don't really know what's happening here. I'll say as a parenthetical, TNG was a very popular show. So it's actually like entirely plausible that like most of the people going to see this movie at the time knew what was going on, but from 30 years later, yeah, different story. But even the rhythms and structure of the movie, the kind of a plot, the kind of almost entirely separated A plot, B plots, like all these things have a very television

feel, have a very sort of like episode of the movie, Phil. And Frakes, who is a very like workman like director doesn't have a, there's not like a lot of stylization. And so all that comes together, I think, to create this, um, this, again, this feeling that the movie is sort of like a glorified episode of the, of the, of the television show. Having said that, I, I think it works quite a bit. Like there, there are some things I think are a bit cringe, like the, the holodeck sequences, I think is a bit cringe. Some of the stuff on Earth is, I think is a bit cringe. But on the main, I think the film works quite well as sort of like a Star Trek action flick. And the attempt to sort of like play with genre a bit.

Like all the stuff that happens in the enterprise is basically sort of like a horror film. And there's just there are a few like genuinely great sequences and shots during that, during, in the enterprise section of the film when, when they encounter Borg shrouded in darkness and their red lights are shooting out to sort of like identify the, the enterprise crew, when the zero-g-borg fight on the, on the exterior of the enterprise, like there's some pretty cool stuff, I think, happening in the film. And on the earth side of things, which is much more of kind of like a fish out-of-water comedy kind of thing. I think that's less successful, but I still, again, I like these actors, where I like seeing freight because I like seeing a burden. I like James Cromwell. Alphrey Woodard, who is sort of like the link between what's happening in space,

what's happening on the ground is terrific. And I do think that the confrontation between Picard and Woodard about sort of like Picard's obsession with the board, Borg, is like what are the best acted scenes in Star Trek? That's me. I mean, he's a good actor. You know, Patrick Stewart? Yeah, he's a good act. I mean, he's a, you know, he's like Shakespeare. actor like he delivers his lines with conviction like his voice is great like but but i don't believe him i mean i guess he has the range to make it possible but picard is like i believe it when like in the old in the old one uh the undiscovered country like shatner being like a bit of a bigot

and like obsessively hating the clenons to me is like yeah i believe that like that because he's like captain kirk's like kind of has weaknesses you know like he's he's like got passions and picard is like very i mean he does get angry i suppose on the show and sometimes has sometimes has blind spots his character's not that flat but he's like way wiser so i just didn't believe that he would be like an obsessive Ahabian guy in the same way but I guess I don't know his experience with being assimilated what is the point and now I'm changing the subject very quickly what are the board trying to accomplish okay so yeah here I think here's where we can get here's where we can kind of get in talking about the politics of the film a bit I'm going to get into that I will

say the interesting thing about Picard as a character which predates this movie and I think this movie kind of incorporates it is that like in their backstories like Kirk v. Picard. Kirk's backstory is that he was a big, big, like, nerdlinger in school who kind of was like a late bloomer, right? Sort of like nerdy guy, love books, late bloomer, and then sort of like, you know, off to the races. It's for Picard, kind of the whole thing about his character is that like when he was

a younger man, he was actually like extremely impulsive and like a big, like an impulsive of jock. He famously like gets into a knife fight and almost gets killed. Like that's this whole thing. And so it's sort of like the adult Kirk is in some ways making up for like the young Kirk and the adult Picard is in some ways making it for the younger Picard. Anyway, I didn't know that. But okay, the Bork. So the Borg are the Borg are an interesting set of characters. In the first season, next generation, it's sort of like there aren't any really recurring enemies, right? Like the show establishes that the Klingons are more or less allies of the Federation when they were enemies in the previous series. The Romulans, who were sort of like another kind of traditional

enemy, the Federation, aren't really present in the first season. And so the writers, they needed an actual recurring villain for the enterprise. They had created the Ferengi, but that doesn't work out. They look too silly. And I mean, the Frangie. Frangie created by Gene Roddenberry. And they come a little too close. So you might say like a Jewish caricature. Yeah.

Well, yeah, they're like, they're like the, the merchant people. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think this points to something. They love money. Anyway, the, the Borg were kind of a next. concept and they were originally envisioned as sort of an insectasoid race but the budget didn't work for that so they were reconfigured as a cybernetic race and their purpose is just to like assimilate everything right sort of like to extend the hive as far as possible I have always

thought this was interesting because in a lot of ways and I think a way is more potent than later Federation antagonists. In Deep Space 9, the chief antagonist is the Dominion, which is sort of like a mirror universe federation, sort of like a hierarchical collective of races that are quite expansionist. The Borg to me are much more of like a dark mirror of the Federation. You'll note in later in later Star Trek series, one of the critiques of the federation brought to bear is that like it erases cultural difference and like there are there opponents to the federation who do not want their planets to join the federation because what they are afraid of is that the it'll flatten out the distinctive qualities right

of the culture you see some of this in the undiscovered country where the clingons are sort of like we don't want we don't want your whole thing um and the borger kind of that taken to it's like it's like logical extreme like they completely erase what was distinctive um in favor of sort of like a single uh collective yeah okay i had yeah i kind of had that thought too i i maybe we've discussed this before yeah so they're like totalitarian uh society um but the totalitarian society maybe if you squint is not that different from the federations project, which is like cosmopolitan. I guess it's like the paleo, what I've called in the past, like the paleocon critique of Star Trek is like, oh, this diverse cosmopolitan society, egalitarian society is actually low key totalitarian

because it's just absorbing all these other cultures into it and making them conform to its moral, and cultural standards and, you know, wouldn't it be better if, like, there was more, um, and these alien races could, could, uh, you know, maintain their distinct cultures and traditions and, um, but it seems like the, the notion of the federation, which is like, it, I mean, it looks like the United Nations flag, right? I mean, it is the right. Yeah. It is a cosmopolitan rule government. The ideal of it is, is, is cosmopolitan world government. I guess, you know, like people, when Star Trek first started in the 60s, people are very optimistic still about the project of the United Nations, especially among, you know, people with liberal inclinations as it's something that can succeed. I think what's funny, and I think also in the end of history period when this movie comes out and also when TNG is kind of launched and comes to its, you know, biggest popularity.

Yeah, that notion of world governance on a kind of benevolent, democratic, cosmopolitan basis where the distinctness of different cultures can be preserved, but they're also united together. I think a lot of people believed in that. I mean, I kind of grew up, I remember touring the United Nations as a child and being like, yeah, man, like, this is great. This is the way. And I guess I just, it was that and Star Trek, you know, all rattling around. around in my head where I was like, yeah, you know, like, I think this could work and this is the way

things should be. And now I think we have a slightly more John's picture of what international bodies like the United Nations are actually able to accomplish. I think that the Borg to me are, like, I think what's difficult to understand to me as a villain, well, like, what's the, I'm I guess they need the resources somehow. Like it's just part of their, like, they survive off expansion or something. Are they imperialistic? Or they feed off people, right? Or they get energy from them?

No, I think it's just, I think it's just like a relentless. It's like, it's like capital, right? Just sort of like a relentless drive to expand. Okay, they got to do it. To accumulate. All right. Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right. They got to accumulate. Actually, that's kind of interesting. They're like Hobbs, Leviathan in that way. Yeah, I guess they have a different model of the polity or what is going on. They have a very kind of, you know, pessimistic vision of what's a political body is based of. It's almost like the Federation is kind of like Hegelian. It's like, we're going to grow and synthesize things into larger holes.

But then the particular is also held in the larger hole in such a way that it's not completely, you know, know like everybody has a role you know you know what i'm saying like it's all kind of yeah yeah organic and harmonious and everything's sort of like yes there's this type of people and they live in a harmonious relationship with us other and that's the whole like star trek crew which is an extension of the world war two platoon movie concept which is like people have different races and ethnic backgrounds cooperating in a joint um project in which their differences are actually you the diversity is their strength like they may have some conflicts but ultimately their different perspectives their different abilities their different backgrounds um are what contributes to the

strength of the whole project against the the the complete uh conformity you know conformism of of the board um and yeah and then you know everybody on star trek has a character they're all they're always like, there's a lot of identity politics in Star Trek because, or at least in the next generation, because people are always like, well, what is this character's background, you know, bring to it? Like, okay, they have a, they have a particular culture or experience that they bring to. And then they have to kind of work out what that means in relation to the other people that they, they work with. I mean, that kind of begins with the earlier Star Trek, too, with, you know, Spock being an alien and, you know, right. So, and then the Borg is just like, no, no, no, we all just take over. But I think that the funny thing is that there's like a right wing, I think the right wing critique of the Federation is like, it's just not that different from the Borg really. Like that, yeah. Yeah, I think that's, I think it's really, I think it's really perceptive, right?

that like, that when the far right looks at a multicultural pluralistic society where people at least ostensibly share similar values, that to them looks like kind of a hostile assimilation. I mean, let's think about sort of today in the present, when the right talks about something like the Black Lives Matter protest in 2020, they don't perceive it, right, as a organic expression of, you know, sentiments and views and intuitions that, like, people came to naturally, kind of like, as a result of living in a more integrated society. What they see it as is like something imposed from above, right? Indoctrination by political authorities, by educators. These views were imposed on specifically like young white

people in particular. And the only response to that is to sort of like target the sources of indoctrination and ensure that they indoctrinate for our own purposes. So they, what we might perceive in that moment as being something federation like, they do see as sort of like a Borg assimilating people into, and they often used the word, totalitarian ideology. I think for some people who are attracted to it or feel embittered, the encounter with that interpretation of the world, the kind of the scales from their eyes, and that's their, you know, awakening moment. They're like, oh, my God, I've always to believe this, but it's not true.

And I think for other people who, you know, believe more or less we should all live in a society that's respectful and peaceful towards one another, the best of our ability, that idea is so strange. You're like, what on earth are you talking about? Like, that's because I think also there's a certain right wing part of right wing thought, which does not believe that consensus, which is strange because they, believe in social consensus in so many other ways, if it's unculcated in other ways. They kind of only believe violence is real, and they believe that anything where social consensus is being generated is coercive on some level, and that they don't believe that people could possibly reflect and say, actually, that's probably the best we can really do with one another. And we do have to kind of work out a modus operandi of a society where everyone can, like, treat each other

with a modicum of respect, you know, they assume that any kind of agreement or social peace is actually coercive. Because I think it just goes to the root of the worldview, which is like violence is more real, violence is more honest, that somehow when there is concord, consent, you know, even trade, for some concerners, even trade is kind of amazing. masculating in some way like these things are fundamentally unreal or masculating or yeah ontologically at a remove from some more violent reality and the violent reality is more honest not and not desirable but always at the verge of breaking through and everything that is we've built up as a society

to prevent that violence from breaking through is somehow a lie. It's propagandistic or it's brainwashing. It's something like that. And the other hand, like, I think it's just, it's a completely different way of viewing what the process of living in a society is, right? So I think that there is not all right-wingers. I think in this, but the fundamental kind of liberal idea is that social existence is educated, is an education, right, about what others and ourselves are like. And we begin to

understand ourselves and our world better. And we're always in this expanding. Our minds are always expanding. And I think that for conservatives, it's more a system of restraints. people are naturally violent, acquisitive, and society imposes on them a system of restraints. It's a little bit of both, to be frank. Like, I'm not so much of a liberal optimist that society is mere, that socialization is merely educative and civilizing. I think it's also, I mean, obviously, like, I believe Freud. Who's like, well, civilization is also, you know, you have to repress aggressive impulses, and

that makes people uncomfortable and gives rise to weird symptoms. But I think it's not, I think that the emphasis among right wingers is always restraint, not learning. Yeah, no, I think that's right. I think the idea is that people need to be restrained because they have these. Okay, I'm about saying antisocial, but it's not antisocial because it's not like the right valerizes a lot of different kinds of antisocial behavior. It's that they conceive of the world as being a set of overlapping hierarchies and society is needed to maintain. people's presence within those hierarchies, right? Well, if the hierarchies go out the window, it's anarchy, right? And yeah, yeah, exactly.

It's not, it's not that if society goes out the window, right? Because sort of like there's no one in, you know, there are, there's no, there's no one who is advocating for the dissolution of society, right? It's just sort of, it's sort of advocating for more horizontal social relations. I think the rights view is like that, like that, that itself is anarchy, right? If there is no one who is on top above someone else, no groups are above other groups, and this results in a kind of anarchy. One thing I was thinking of while you're speaking, John, is how much, if the Borg are kind of like

what the Federation looks like to people hostile to the notion of egalitarianism, then Picard, in his relationship to the board, does seem to represent this conservative notion that sort of like violence is like the essential force binding together society or even an idea that their role of like conservative political movements is to stem the tide against the dissolution of... hierarchies. I mentioned this before. My favorite scene in the movie is one where Picard is in an argument with Lily, who's played by Alfred Woodard, who is amazing in this movie. I love Alfred Woodard. I think she's an incredible actress. And she really, I think, like, elevates the whole film. But they're having this argument. The Borg had more or less taken over the ship, and the other officers want Picard to detonate the enterprise. We have to destroy the enterprise if we're going to save, we're going to save ourselves.

And so Lily says, Jean-Luc blow up the damn ship. And Picard kind of screams no, smashes glass with his phaser. And then he has this little monologue where he says, I will not sacrifice the enterprise. We've made too many compromises already. Too many retreats. They invade our space and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds and we fall back. Not again.

The line, sorry. the way he says this is very funny to me he says the line must be drawn here yeah this far no further and i will make them pay for what they've done and that i mean that that that sounds like something jd vance might say about wokeness yeah yeah um right it has that same kind of like energy of of uh we won't let we won't let the you know the cultural left destroy us uh they've already taken too much. And I think that, I think, I think if we're going to, if we're going to apply this lens to the film, then I think it's interesting how the Borg do represent this sort of like nightmare of what, what multiculturalism appears to be to the right, but also within the

federation, there's like, you know, there's characters who seem to embody another aspect that kind of like the right wing reaction. Right. To multiculturalism. Yeah, and that's the same with the other one, you know, with the, which I, which is I just think is a much better movie is the, the undiscovered country. It's like, you know, they don't really want to make peace with the clenons because they view them as their fundamental enemies. But I think it's like, ultimately Picard is, and this is like how the consensus is built in the federation, like Picard's instincts to fight are not wrong, right? He's just upset. He's just like the way they portray it is he's emotional. He's putting himself above the collective good with his desire.

to take revenge, right? So he's like, he has a primitive attitude towards the Borg, what is, but we still need to fight a war with them, but it's a very different kind of war. It's not one based on, you know, we, we fight a struggle to the death at this one spot. You know, we make a heroic last stand and it's, it's governed by these passions of personal wounds and trying to take vengeance for that. it's something he has to be re-accumulated back into the collective project of the federation right so like right and and and the problem is is that he and and and says okay well we have to actually abandon ship

we have to uh you know not make this about us or you we have to and then do what we do as dorky star trek people which is to do the clever thing not the uh Um, you know, Star Trek never really people never like they, they fight wars, but they don't win through brute force, right? They're like, they're always, they always have to come up with a stratagem, you know, and they're like, oh, we're going to outsmart. They tried to outsmart us. We're going to outsmart them. So he just like, he returns to the fold after being like this impulsive and, um, creature back into the world of, you know, of social. cooperation. So he, it's funny like he, his experience of being assimilated to the

Borg actually rips him away from his socialization as a federation person because then he has his own vendetta, a personal vendetta, which is considered to be, you know, socially destructive. And it's, that's like, yeah, that's Moby Dick. I mean, like, Moby Dick. Ahab, which I was just looking at for some reason again. Ahab, you know, is, is, endangers the ship and everything with his obsessive fixation on, on, on getting revenge. And it's revenge against something that can't really be taken revenge against. I mean, there's a famous part of the scene of the book where it's like revenge against the dumb brute makes no sense. And he gives it very insane and interesting speech, justifying it.

All that's to say is I do believe they had to embody the Borg and this kind of evil character, but it would be, it's almost more interesting. And I think it is easier to do on the show. It's almost more interesting to be like the Bork's not even like evil. It's just continuous. As you were saying, it's like capital. It's like a abstract process that can't be stopped, like has no internal break to it's stopping. I mean, I guess Capital, according to some people, does have internal break, has

internal contradictions. What would the internal contradictions of the Borg be? I don't know. The board, the, there's internal contradictions in the federations project, which is like, how do you unite everybody in a single polity and then not use some kind of repression against them and make them, you know, and flatten out what they want to do? Well, I mean, so, okay, internal contradictions within the bore. I mean, the movie posits one, which is that like the board has the board has this sort of collective, this individual sentience that represents the collective whole, but that individual sentience needs another individual in order to understand itself. Yeah, that's like Hegel's recognition theory essentially. Right, right.

Yeah, yeah. It needs. So, oh, that's so interesting. I think that that's, okay, now I'm a little bit more sold here. basically, well, that's like in the master slave dialectic in Hegel, essentially the organism that's being described, like in the phenomenology of spirit, it's very abstract. He's describing some kind of being that has some sort of elementary form of sentience, but is not quite, you know, a conscious, certainly not a self-conscious being. And what they keep doing is swallowing up other

things, but that's not satisfied. What only works, only brings self-consciousness is the struggle with another being that also has consciousness. And then in the subjugation of the being that has self-consciousness, that is, that creates a higher stage, but it still doesn't work, right? So the master does not have the word in German is closer to Lord and Bondsman than master and slave. So just to keep that in mind. So it refers to a larger group of unequal societies. The slave does all the work and becomes more of a human being in a sense. And the master is still this creature that, you know, is.

is sort of just exist to consume. And I guess what Hegel is saying is that we need others, we need recognition of others to become self-conscious beings, which makes perfect sense in a certain way, like merely mere consumption, which is what animals do on this model, I don't know if that's true. Mere consumption is not conditioned enough to become a self-conscious rational being. And on some point, we need, we want, we desire to be seeing by others and recognized by others. And then all of human history is the process of this struggle for recognition. And Fukuyama at the end of history, his interpretation of Hegel is that is done.

You know, the struggle for recognition is essentially we, liberal democracy means that the ideological struggle for recognition is over. we all see each other as basically more or less subjects in the same way. But then within liberal democratic society, there's like its own little struggles for recognition, right? So like, you know, political struggles, but also just competition for money, for cultural cachet, so on so forth. So anyway, that's interesting to me. Okay.

So the board does have a problem, which is that it's not. do it's not getting what it wants and that makes it sense that makes it sense why it would keep going right yeah right yeah okay yeah and that's why this relationship begins where it's trying to find an other like in data or something that it can have this it can have this relation of recognition but it doesn't work yeah right so some of this also some of this is sort of like I'm bringing to bear like other star trek on this but I think you can I think some of this is present in the film because the character of the Borg Queen was introduced in this film. And a lot of Star Trek fans are unhappy about the notion of the Borg queen because they

like the idea of sort of like the Borg gets almost like a virus that just kind of expands outward. But in this sort of like, I think this Hagellian reading of the Borg queen is like very compelling. And, you know, the movie retcons Picard's assimilation, experience. So in the in the show, Picard is assimilated into the collective. But the movie suggests that the Borg Queen was looking for a counterpart of some sort, some some being that could give her recognition. And so Picard is assimilated. He is subjugated. But the purpose of the subjugation is to cultivate another Borg that could recognize the Borg queen as like an individual. And I think, I think, I think that, I think that, I think that reading works.

I don't know. Yeah. I think, I think it's a good way of making sense. Well, that's the fundamental mistake or the fundamental error of the, I don't know, what do you want to call it? The ontology, the, the way of being of the Borg is always going to fail because it is a misinterpretation of what's at play in the process. of the struggle for recognition, right? So it only sees subjugation, ultimately. It can't see past subjugation.

So it's faded to always fall back into this unsatisfying pattern of expansion. But the Federation has solved that problem through its system of both preserving the other and incorporating them into a larger hole, right? which is like what liberal democracy is supposed to do right that's the Higalian interpretation of democracy is a corporate a corporate existence which is also one that has a role for the individual and vice versa right so it balances a collective and individual and I think what's so interesting about the Higalian critique of this of of of of collective of individual. collectivism and and individualism, it's, it sort of suggests, and this is that the

egotism of collectives and the egotism of individuals is both identical in a fundamental way, right? So like the, a state, a collective that only exists for its gratification and expansion is not different ontologically than an individual who only can't can't view itself as part of a larger hole right right and only can only can only consume and can so there's some weird homology structural homology taking place between the subject and and this is why it kind of happens this way it's like the totalitarian state and the and the and the unrestrained capitalized capitalist subject are somehow the same thing, you know?

I don't know if that makes sense. But, but, like, that is one, it's, it's one thing getting out of control or vice versa, right? It's not, we cannot exist truly as individuals if we're reduced to the, like, okay, here's maybe a better way to put it. Totalitarian state reduces us to a certain kind of organism, right? Reduces collective to a certain kind of organism in the same way that being a purely consuming, power expanding, accumulating subject of capitalism is distorting and is only one type of organism, right? And they're kind of the same kind of organism on some level.

And what the Federation correct to Galian thing is doing is saying, well, that's only part of the human being. And then we all have to have other spheres. So we must be able to relate to each other in the world not merely as consuming and subjugating. Right. And yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the innovation you could say the advantage of liberal democracy is that it can, it allows

for both, it allows for maybe larger collective projects of something, whether that is expansion, whether that is sort of like accumulation, what have you, but also preserve this space in civil society, within the household, within the family, preserves the space for individuals to realize themselves as individuals. And it's funny, Picard makes sort of this point to Lily when he's trying to explain kind of like the political economy of the 24th century, and he's like, yeah, we don't really have money anymore. Right. We kind of like, we pursue, we pursue exploration for its own sake. We pursue, well, that's another reason. why right wagers don't like it because they think it's communist and it kind of is yeah but it

is it is yeah straightforwardly communist yeah we're like oh it's liberal democracy and they're like it's really communist and they're there they'll be like liberal democracy is actually communist you know uh other star trek does suggest sort of like a bit of a dark side to this which is sort of like the federation's most valuable technology is the replicator the replicators but allows for like the federation's post scarcity society and the federation offers up the replicator to species that are considering joining the federation so that's just ending history for everybody as they go around the wall and i think i think that but doesn't that go against the prime directive isn't the prime directive not to mess with people the prime directive is not to mess with

societies that are not warp capable. Oh, so once you have the warp drive, all bets are off. Like, yeah, all bets are off. Once you have the warp drive and you can travel, then you're, you have your post, your post-industrial, your post-economic society. You're just in a utopia. Once you have the warp drive, you're sufficiently technologically advanced to be part of the, part of this like global society or this galactic society.

it's sort of like it's like it's like a benchmark for for whether a society is capable of being like you know good galactic citizens almost um but i think it's it's interesting to think of the federation is offering the the replicator is like a carrot like with an implicit stick right if you don't join us then like you know resources aren't going to last forever buddy yeah we we have infinite resources and power. It's also just a very, it's also kind of like the United States view of itself, this naive kind of like, well, we're the good guys. And it's also like, you're the most powerful fucking, or this is also the United States probably in times when it was a little even more powerful than it is now. He's like, you're the most powerful country in earth. Everything you say kind of comes with an implicit threat, which is like, we come over and we're like, yep, it's nice to meet you, wouldn't you like to do things our way? And then you're like, you're arriving on the back of aircraft carriers and like, there's just an certain input. And it's like, if you don't

like it, then, you know, maybe we won't like you. There's just a, you know, there's just a certain, there's a certain kind of like combination of being naive and menacing, which I think of the United States definitely has, which is like, we come in peace. We're the friendly good guys. We also have all the nuclear weapons in the world. Pay no attention to our will or our fleet of billion dollar fighter aircraft. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so there's something, and I'm sure that's like a people's looking at the United States when they resent it, they're like, how dare you arrive with the most powerful military

in the world and the biggest economy in the world? And then be like, we're here to do good. You know? It's like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting because just since we've been talking about sort of like how kind of the view from the right of like using this movie to talk about the view from the right of egalitarianism, this is how right winger's view kind of like, you know, the current cultural dispensation of right, like nominal, you know, support for diversity and such, right? They view it as, you know, someone like me might say. hey, you know, we just, just want to, want to, want to get along together.

Can we all just get along? Can we all just get along? And it's like the response is, fuck you. You've tried to. What are you going to do if I don't want to get a lot? Oh, are you going to, what are you going to do if I say the N word? Right. Are you going to cancel me?

Yeah, it's basically that, really. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, well, it would be better if you did not. That's the other thing. It's just like, it seems to be there's so much attachment. Like, okay. Here's a thing that I went going back to the pandemic, like the way that, okay, we got things

wrong in the pandemic, and I will not deny that certain ways liberals related to it was more cultural, became its own cultural thing and was not based on science. It was based on an emotional reaction and tribalism of that. But the thing that I find so strange is that at the extremes, people relate to it like that. And it's like, no, no, no, look, there was an objective problem. we were looking for the best possible way under bad conditions to deal with that that's why masks exist did they work in every should they have been done da da da like do we need to keep wearing them do we

no i'm sorry it's a physical thing that's to present a physical thing from going inside of you and we were trying to prevent that it's like it's there's there was an idea about it that was highly rational and the way that turned into its own struggle for recognition kind of thing, which was like, I, you know, I won't be reconstructed and I don't give a damn like about it was so strange to me. I was like, okay, man, like, okay, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But like, what we're trying to do right now is to come up with a solution for a very difficult problem. We're not trying to humiliate you, you know? Yeah. We're not trying to, like, enforce you to like, be like, oh, you're trying to make me wherever. I'm

sorry I'm doing a Southern accent. It's not nice. But like, but you know, it is that kind of like there, you know, I know it's bullshit like the whole Confederate argument. Like it's about states rights. It was, of course, it was a slave society. But there, there is something to the sheer of certain people. I was like, you have nothing to do with what you, you didn't, you didn't materially benefit from the Confederate society. You're just attracted to the contrariness of it. for some reason being like you can't come down you yankees can't come down there and tell us what to do like it's just like you have no material advantage of being pro confederate it's just a culture of rebellion of for a bad reason you know as would a grant say the worst cause that anybody had

ever fought for like yes that's that's exactly what he said yeah and like and so there is something to that where it's like and I thought about that I know there's a great I was reading James McPherson's book um battle cry battle cry freedom and there was this this amazing part where I was talking about a confederate soldier from a very poor part of the south not a slave owner and he hated being in the confederate army because he said he's like they want me to take my hat off to salute officers and he's like they should just shoot me now I don't want to do it but there was like this kind of resistance to being socialized in any way or being part of any kind of system of reciprocal duties and obligations that exist in America, which I find to be, it's funny. And sometimes

it's kind of touching, but, and a good thing. But other times I'm just like, dude, this has nothing to do with an imposition on your rights. This is a rational attempt to live in a society where we don't all die. You know? So that, that's the last thing I'll say about. that, which is, I also think is like the conservative, sometimes the conservative mentality of contrariness. I'm just like, dude, you're fucking, you're being an adolescent. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's interesting that we even refer to it as being conservative, right? It's, it's, it is, it is at base, at base, not even really an ideology. It's sort of like, it's like a reaction. It's a reaction. It's a reaction. It's sort of, I don't want to be told. I don't want to be told. I don't want to be

told what to do. You're not, you're not my mother. Right. Fair enough. I don't like to be told what to do either, but I, but what I can, I'm able to do as an adult human being is to assess whether or not when I'm receiving an instruction, whether or not there's some rationality behind it that I can accept internally. Or sometimes I'm like, well, I don't really believe that it's reasonable, but the coercive mechanisms are such, I can't really resist that. That does happen. But usually I'm like, all right, man, like, I fucking know why we all have to stop at red lights. Like, we're all, like, this makes irrational sense.

And that's another thing that Hegel and German idealists talk about is like, yeah, like, being a rational subject is like, when you receive a command, you don't, you neither unreflectively reject it or nor unreflectively accept it. You say, do I see the rational basis for this? And then you're like, yeah, okay. Like, I understand roughly why we're all doing this. But some people are just like, I'm like, don't you think they don't even want to begin the process to be like, there's a rationale here that I can accept, although it may be mistaken. I can see the reasoning. And but there's like, no, like it becomes this petulant rejection of the possibility

of social living in a certain respect. And I get it, dude. We've all been there. It, like, sometimes, like, someone's telling you to do something or asking you to do something. And, like, it strikes you as irrational and imposition. You're like, no, fuck you. Like, I'm not doing that. You're, you're, you're harassing me in a slight way with this kind of, like,

you're trying to get me to, like, follow a rule. And it's really more about you bossing me around than, like, social benefits, right? We've all had that experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we've all had that experience. I think the, the task of becoming an adult is recognizing when that's a reasonable reaction. Yeah. I probably edge too far on the, when people are bossing me around. It's, it's to tell them to fuck off, but I think I'm better than so. Yeah. I do think it's, I mean, I'm someone who we elevate into national leadership does kind of

trickle down and like in the people's attitudes and how they carry and present themselves. I do think it's significant that like, you know, the president for four years and still a major figure who may well be president again is a guy who's who is incapable of, of trying, incapable of behaving in a pro-social way in these sorts. Yeah. And who takes any, takes even mere suggestion as an unacceptable imposition on sort of his total freedom and autonomy, a total freedom that is like untethered from any sort of obligation.

Yeah, yeah. And that's why libertarians like him and why conservatives like him. Yeah. He's petulant. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's sort of, if there's one reason for conservatives to truly hate something like the Federation is that it does embody and to maybe even prefer a position like that of the board, that of the board queen is that the federation is

embodies a kind of freedom where there are no masters. That's sort of the whole thing. Even within the context of like Starfleet, it's a very horizontal relationship between officers and enlisted. Picard we see frequently

is consulting a council of officers when he's making decisions. But he definitely gives orders. He still gives orders he gives orders but they but you'll know in this film his his order giving is presented this sort of an aberration yeah yeah right kind of like he is a little irrational right when he's being irrational that's the thing is like that's the thing about like what are the mean what is the meaning of social instructions and i think that basically and this is why the military for a lot of

reasons obviously but the military is liked by right wingers because a certain arbitrariness of command is must be part of the military structure right you can't question right you cannot question orders you know it because then the whole thing breaks down um you know you you must follow orders and i think that that's basically i also believe they think that there's something like there's an originary act that's arbitrary in society um and not everything and i think this is the liberal or left wing thing it's like well every norm should have a rational basis and the, I don't know, the right-leaning part of the liberal tradition, like the Burkean stuff is like, it's just too hard.

Like, you can't question the wisdom of every norm because we don't, it's too complicated and too hard to figure it out. Let's just assume that they exist for a good reason. Like, if we start to tear things up, things will fall apart. There's something, some wisdom to that. But then there's the more reactionary side of that, which is society fundamentally lives on an arbitrary imposed order, and if we begin to question it, it will all fall apart. So do not question orders.

Do not scrutinize. Do not subject things to rational scrutiny because then we're going to start to go down the toilet. Oh, before we even wrap up, you didn't like this movie. Would you recommend it? No, not really. I mean, I'm sure, like, look, if you're a fan of the series, you're going to like it. If you're looking for a movie, I mean, it wasn't that interesting to me.

I think, you know, there are many movies we watch that are not good movies, but you can throw on and kind of enjoy. And I was squirming watching this movie. I found it to be annoying and kind of dull and cringy, as you said. And I did not like it. I, you know, it gives us plenty of talk about as often, but as a piece of art, it was, it bugged me. no uh this is my favorite star trek movie wow we don't usually disagree this strenuously

no no that's okay it's okay this is my favorite and like I said a lot of it's just like pure nostalgia a lot of warm feelings for this movie in this cast so I would recommend it but if you if you are not into Star Trek first contact you should check out our

episode on the Undiscovered Country you should watch the undiscovered country which is a true gem it is a great movie and Rath of Khan, which John mentioned earlier as well, is also a terrific film. I am partial to the Star Trek, the Motion Picture, which is a difficult movie, but I quite enjoy it. And even I'll vouch for the search for Spock and the fifth movie, the Final Frontier, which are weaker entries, but have their charms. Yeah.

I have all these movies on Blu-ray Maybe I just am not such a TNG guy I know the TNG is considered by Star Trek fans To be like better product But I guess I like the old stuff Yeah I mean I don't know I don't know if I don't know I think it's I really do think it's all quite It's all preference based

Because all of them have their high points and their weak points Like yeah people really like Voyager I find it a little bit tedious But like people love Voyager People even like Enterprise I mean, I think it's, I think the great thing about Star Trek is a little something for everyone. Never a DS9 movie, which always makes you sad. I do love D-SP-Nine quite a bit.

Okay, that is our show. If you're not a subscriber, please subscribe. We're available on iTunes, Spotify, and Google Podcasts, and wherever else podcast are found. If you subscribe, please leave a rating and review. It does help people find the show, and you can reach out to us on social media if you'd like to. You can also reach out to us over email at Unclear Impress and Beep. back at fastmail.com. And for this we can fast and in feedback, we have an email from Trevor, uh, which is just titled question for the podcast. Hey guys. Courage under fire moves us into the

era of films dealing with the goal for. And with it, we kind of leave the Vietnam War behind. From here on out, I think when heroes or villains with military backgrounds appear in the action movies, their formative combat experience is not Vietnam, which makes sense. By the mid-90s, the youngest Vietnam vets were in their 40s. And like Vietnam bet, Merthaw, getting too old for this shit. I was wondering what some of your wrap-up thoughts on Vietnam and Vietnam vets in the military political movies of the 90s

were, and how those movies differ from the treatment, uh, in the treatment from movies the 80s did and how the Gulf War will be treated. Also, I'm very much enjoying John's book, in addition to everything everyone else has been saying about the high quality of the writing, it's also a book that smells really good, which is an important thing for

a book. I'm taking it off the shelf. I think it smells like a normal book. I don't notice, but I am a smoker. So my sense of smell has deteriorated. So, but if you say so, it's not meant to be consumed that way. Vietnam vets in movies. I just watched Platoon.

Yeah. And I just watched, and I'm watching. I'm like halfway through born on the. 4th of July, which are both kind of seminal 80s Vietnam movies, Oliver Stone, and those films, along with other films that kind of have Vietnam vets in them, they always portrayed the Vietnam War as some kind of tragedy, as a traumatic experience, and they always sort of take the position, right, as we've discussed in the Rambo, our Rambo episodes on Patreon, that the soldiers and the veterans were like betrayed by the country and by the society at large

with Vietnam and as this goes into the 90s I mean I think I think there's still and I'm trying to think of examples here I think there's still very much a sense of sort of trauma associated with Vietnam in its depiction in the 90s

but as with the normalization of relations with Vietnam you know John McCain famously you know goes back to the country the Vietnamese are portrayed with much more nuance as we go through the 90s, I think.

I think that's the big difference. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's really, I mean, I guess a big project of this podcast as we get for time is to think about how the Gulf War gets metabolized and then the war on terror gets metabolized and what veterans, what we think about veterans about that, of those places, which I think is actually a pretty complicated, interesting question. Vietnam veterans, yeah, I mean, in our country, they had a do, thing, which they were both

an object of fear, an object of disgust, and an object of great reverence. And I think that that's, you know, comes out in their representation in a lot of the films we've talked about. And yeah, I think that, you know, the

experience of, I mean, you know, it changed our society the way we think about a lot of things in our society. I mean, PTSD was, I think, resulted from the observation, the, the, the, the condition PTSD resulted from observation of Vietnam veterans, you know, like, I think that we we understand trauma, mental health, you know, very often through the experience of Vietnam. That used to be the metaphor, you know, it used to be a root metaphor, which was, you know,

NAM, the experience of NAM was this nightmareish trauma that, you know, messed people up and messed up the country. So now we have different ones, but Vietnam, I think. weirdly was a revolution in the way Americans thought about themselves as, as, as, you know, as subjects of mental health and, and, you know, people to be cared for by the society around them and respected by the society around them. And I think that, you know, strangely, this might sound really weird, but, you know, and I think. think that like conservatives would reject this or they would but there's a certain identity politics or even wokeness about vietnam veterans or there was which was that you know these people have been discarded they're not being respected after having made sacrifice for this country

they are a unique set of medical issues that's not being respected um and it may be a kind of right-wing identity politics, but it's definitely a little different than the way veterans and other wars were treated because it usually was a more universal experience. But yeah, so anyway, those are just some thoughts about Vietnam vets. Yeah. Thank you for the email trapper. Interesting things to think about. Unfortunately, our next film is not going to stimulate much of that thinking because

Our episodes come out roughly every two weeks, and we will see you then with the seasonally appropriate 1996 film Independence Day, directed by Roland Emmerich, starring Will Smith, Dale Pullman, Jeff Gold, Lamarie McDonald, Judd-Hurst, starring everyone from the 90s, basically. If you're listening to this podcast, you've seen this movie. If you're like an American over the age of 30, you've seen this movie. A quick synopsis, a giant alien mothership enters, sorry, on July 2nd, a giant alien mothership enters orbit around Earth and deploy several saucershape destroyer spacecraft that quickly lay waste to major cities around the planet. On July 3rd, the United States conducts a coordinated counterattack that fails. And on July 4th, humanity launches a war to save itself from destruction.

Okay. seen it independent independence days available to watch on amazon and apple you can also stream it on hulu um i you know i i kind i i've seen this movie a million times i was i usually watch it around this time anyway so this is kind of you know uh july 4th i'll be watching this movie guarantee okay uh it's a tradition in the buoy household it's a tradition in the buoy household So our next film's Independence Day You should check that out Don't forget our Patreon

Where we watch the films of the Cold War And try to unpack them It's $5 a month It's two episodes a month And And whenever you start Subscribe you get access to the full backlog Which goes back

About two years at this point We are currently making our way Through the Rambo movies And to our next Patreon episode We'll be on Rambo 3 No subtitle there But this one takes place in Afghanistan, Rambo goes to help the Mujahideen.

And we said when we started the Rambo movies that we weren't going to dip into the later Rambo ones. But I think we're going to do Rambo 4 called John Rambo, either for the Patreon for the main feed. And that's the 2008 Rambo movie that takes place, I believe, in Southeast Asia. So we'll check that out as well. Cool. But for the 380s, those are on the Patreon.

So please check that out. All right. That is it for us. For John Gans, I'm Jamal Bowie, and we will see you next time.